


Fancy A Quiche?

by Euphoric_Mandelbulb



Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Bad Puns, Gen, Hard Bargaining, Humor, Humour, Post-Episode: s02e03 Ipswich, Quiche, Quiches, Will You All Please Stop Saying Nineteen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-13
Updated: 2014-04-13
Packaged: 2018-01-19 06:49:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1459924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Euphoric_Mandelbulb/pseuds/Euphoric_Mandelbulb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So, what did become of the remainder of the four hundred quiches?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fancy A Quiche?

**Author's Note:**

> Set immediately post-"Ipswich". 
> 
> Minor spoilers for "Ipswich" and "Fitton". [Later note: Zurich-compliant.]
> 
> Not beta'd, because I have no beta :-( Did not need Britpicking, because I *am* British :-)

"Ah, Dr Duncan, glad to have -”  
  
“Excuse me, Dr Duncan -”  
  
Carolyn and Douglas found themselves facing one another from opposite ends of the corridor, Dr Peter Duncan (not _the_ Peter Duncan!) midway between them.  
  
“Carolyn, how _unexpected_. Could it be that you intend for your pilots' futures to feature four hundred second-hand quiches?”  
  
“Three hundred and eighty-nine quiches, Douglas, you foolishly forgetful man, but otherwise correct.”  
  
“An excellent plan. Of course, I could reduce the expense to you by buying my share _myself_.”  
  
“And selling them on for a profit, no doubt.”  
  
“Oh, Carolyn, do you _really_ think my plans would _ever_ be so linear?”  
  
“ _No_ , Douglas, you will _not_ be making any more clever little deals using _my_ aeroplane.”  
  
“I disagree. Dr Duncan, whatever she's willing to pay you for three hundred and eighty-nine quiches, I'll outbid her.”  
  
“You just said you were only buying your own share!”  
  
“Ah, but you wouldn't agree to that, so I'm forced to change my plans: I'm now going to outbid you for the lot and then sell two-thirds of them back to you for Martin and Arthur's in-flight meals.”  
  
“At a profit, I presume.”  
  
“ _Absolutely_.”  
  
“And what makes you think you _can_ outbid me? _I_ have MJN's budget, whereas _you_ have only a _First Officer's_ pay packet and a few hundred Euros' worth of contraband.”  
  
“I admit that my spare cash isn't _much_ greater than MJN's spare budget, but every little helps. Besides, where are you planning to _store_ all these quiches? The Portakabin only has enough freezer space for thirty-six meals.”  
  
“...ah.”  
  
“It might interest you to know, Carolyn, that my home freezer is just about big enough to hold a dead body. Admittedly only a Martin-sized one – Arthur might be a bit much to expect of it.”  
  
“Alright, here's the deal: you buy your share of quiches, I'll buy the rest, and I'll pay you a pound a day for your freezer space.”  
  
“Five.”  
  
“Two.”  
  
“Four.”  
  
“Three.”  
  
“π.”  
  
“Deal.”  
  
“And we split the quiches fifty-fifty. Half of yours go to Martin and half to Arthur; half of mine go to me and half to my very good friend Perry in Wellington. Cheese and tomato is an unusual combination in New Zealand, apparently – they seem to prefer cheese and pineapple.”  
  
“What?! No! My aeroplane is _not_ your smuggling equipment!”  
  
“Then _no_ freezer space shall be available for rent. How long do you suppose cooked quiche stays fresh at ambient temperature?”  
  
Carolyn glowered. “All right then, you amoral trickster, fifty-fifty it is.”  
  
“ _Very_ good. Well, then: Dr Duncan? How much do you want for your leftover lunchtime quiches?”  
  
Dr Duncan, who had been listening bemused to the bargaining, had forgotten to think up a price. “Erm... oh, I don't know, fifty pounds for the lot? But I'm afraid you're wrong about there being three hundred and eighty-nine of them, Ms Knapp-Shappey; we only have three hundred and _sixty_ -nine left now.”  
  
“But... Arthur had eight, and the rest of us had one each... what happened to the other twenty?”  
  
“Settle a bet, Carolyn? 'Did Martin sneak back for the extra portions he craved, or did Arthur head back and try to finish his hundred after the all-too-literal smoke-filled fuselage?'”  
  
“I wouldn't advise that, ha-ha!”  
  
Carolyn rolled her eyes. “ _No_ , Douglas. Dr Duncan, you evidently know what became of the extra twenty quiches – care to inform us?”  
  
Martin peered round the corner behind Douglas, then scuttled over to Dr Duncan. “Okay, I've bought the cool-bag -”  
  
“Good man; just pop round to the dining hall, I'll be with you in a moment.”  
  
“How much did _he_ pay for them? I'll double it.”  
  
“I'll triple it.”  
  
“You might find that... well, both easy and difficult!”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Oh, _no_. You gave them to _him_ for nothing, didn't you?” Douglas sighed.  
  
“Well, we do need to get rid of them _somehow_ , and he kindly offered to take twenty away – he said that that was the most he could fit into _his_ freezer space...”  
  
“Not _nineteen_? Astonishing.”  
  
“So if we 'kindly offer' to take the rest of them away for you...”  
  
“Well, if you're going to trade them for a profit and so on, then I think it's only fair to charge at least a _token_ fee...”  
  
“Wait a moment...”  
  
“ _Yes_ , Carolyn?”  
  
“If we're splitting them fifty-fifty... who's getting the last odd quiche?”  
  
“I'd say that's my _droit de seigneur_ , wouldn't you?”  
  
“Certainly not!”  
  
“Well, what do _you_ propose to do with half a quiche? Save it for a short flight?”  
  
“Ah, now _that's_ an idea!”  
  
“ _No_ , I wasn't being serious -”  
  
“Tough!”  
  
“My freezer, _my_ rules!”  
  
“Your pay, _my_ right to dock it!”  
   
  
As the debate raged, Arthur wandered in, looked at the older crew members in confusion, then turned to Martin. “What's going on, Skip?”  
  
“They're going to buy the rest of those four hundred quiches, and they're arguing over the last odd one.”  
  
“They all looked pretty normal to me! What's odd about it?”  
  
“As in, there's an odd _number_ of quiches so they can't share them equally, Arthur.”  
  
“Oh, right! I think I remember that from school!”  
  
“What, you were taught basic arithmetic in terms of _quiches_?”  
  
“Yep!” Arthur rummaged in his pocket, then trotted over to Dr Duncan and held out the smoke-blackened, gum-bespattered, unidentifiable-stickiness-contaminated small change from within. “There should be either 27p or 43p there. It's usually one or the other. Except for once when it was 18p and the 8p was all stuck together with an old lolly and no-one would take it, not even the charity bucket people. Anyway, is that enough for one quiche?”  
  
  
***  
  
  
“Right, so, to confirm: you'll trade up the odd quiche as high as you can go – on its own, _not_ as part of a job lot; you cash in the top trade for an _even_ quantity of money, you _don't_ cash in early or late to spite me, and we split the profits equally _without_ you cheating in _any_ way. Deal?”  
  
“That's a _lot_ to ask of me, Carolyn... oh, fine, deal.”  
  
They turned to announce their decision to Dr Duncan, only to find the corridor empty. As they blinked in surprise, Dr Duncan reappeared round the corner, followed by Martin (clutching a cool-bag as though it contained his own life force), then Arthur, who was engulfing a quiche in a manner almost identical to the African hunting dogs consuming their hearty beast.  
  
“Look, Mum! I've sorted it out for you! Now you don't need to argue with Douglas any more!” yelled Arthur joyfully through a mouthful of quiche, his people-reading training – derived from Ipswich though it was - utterly failing to identify their expressions of fury.  
  
“Hooray!” he added, when nobody replied.  
  
“Solve the problem by _destroying_ it. Well _done_ , Arthur – diplomacy as practised by serial killers, armies and crazed dictators throughout history,” Douglas drawled.  
  
Arthur's face fell.  
  
“It was a _very_ kind thought, dear heart,” Carolyn reassured her son, “but you really don't need to solve my problems for me. In fact, _please_ refrain from doing so as much as possible.”  
  
“I saved you in Helsinki,” Arthur muttered through the rest of his quiche.  
  
“Yes, you did, _splendidly_. But apart from special cases like that, please leave me to do my own arguing. All right?”  
  
“Does that mean I shouldn't do the talking to D-”  
  
“He's _very_ much a special case. Now, come and help us carry quiches. I'm sure that's a task where you _can_ be of at least some use.”  
  
“Ooh, brilliant!”

**Author's Note:**

> Arthur doesn't seem to eat a quiche between saying “Another quiche, I think!” and admitting to having eaten seven, so presumably “another quiche” was number eight.
> 
> A cool-bag is an insulated carrier bag, used to keep frozen food from defrosting while you're carting it home from the shops (also useful for storing your frozen food while you defrost the freezer, and for keeping picnics cool while you transport them). They usually cost about a pound, and are available from most supermarkets. They used to have fold-over tops which really worked; nowadays, they mostly have poppers along the top which burst open every five minutes. Tesco used to do ones with tabs that slotted into one another to prevent that, but they've discontinued them, presumably because they worked.
> 
> Yes, I DO know what "droit de seigneur" means. But it literally translates as “right of the lord” - and if she's renting his freezer space, that makes him the landlord (of sorts): i.e. he's making a very convoluted pun.  
> Yes, it's a really bad pun.


End file.
